Fitting a new bath

[PoP]

I'm fitting a new bath for someone at the moment, just wondered what people's experiences of the following were?

The new bath is about 1in (25mm) longer than the room into which it is to be fitted. After consulting with the homeowner it has been decided to whack a notch out of the wall at the tail end of the bath. It's a non load bearing partition wall so shouldn't be that much of a problem to create the notch.

However a 25mm deep notch does sound a bit deep to me. Presumably this is something that others have had to do in the past. Any experiences?

PoP

[TonyK]

25mm sounds like quite a lot but depends on the wall I suppose and how much of the bath you'll "lose". I'd be as concerened about losing space behind the taps or at the other end as much as the wall. What about 12.5mm off each end? Just about the thickness of a sheet of plasterboard so even easier if the walls are drylined.

Tony

[Hellraiser]

Had a similar problem with my bath, solution was to just cut a groove in the rear wall (which was a standard plasterboard affair) and shove the back end of the bath (i.e. not the tap end) into it. There's only about 15mm in there, then just stick some putty in the gap and seal, job done.

Hellraiser............>

[Simon Avery]

Hello PoP

Practice with bits of card covering each end - it might look better

50/50 - ie, 1/2" either end, or 60/40, 75/25 etc.

Should make it nice and solid, anyway.

[Andrew Gabriel]

You might find it was designed for a standard size bath before being plastered. My parents' bathroom is like that.

[Mark S.]

Mine's exactly the same, too small a gap even though it's a "smaller" bath even without any plaster on the walls. Just altered the position and size of the big groove the previous bath had been hacked into, still took me an hour of swearing and sweating to get it into the space though. ;-)

The wall in question is solid blocks and isn't supporting and the previous notch has been there 25 plus years so I wasn't too worried about it.

Fill the gap in and tile down to the top of the bath.

Mark S.

[PoP]

Thanks all!

The 25mm just seemed a bit excessive, I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone..... :)

Guess what job I'll be doing tomorrow morning.....

PoP

[Mark S.]

Swearing loudly at the bath when you get it stuck coz like a chimp you fitted the sink first? Oh sorry that was me. ;-)

Mark S.

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

This is something I had to do in my house. After fitting and tiling, I am not greatly happy about the job and regret not taking the plaster off the walls to make it fit. The previous bath was fitted into a notch, so didn't really think about it too much.

I don't suppose it will be of any consequence unless the bath needs to be taken out for any reason, when the tiling etc will be destroyed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its no big deal depending on what the wall is made off and how structural it is. UI.e. a plasterboard clad non loda bearing stiud wall is a cince. I'd be less happey pulling it out of e.g. a bock single thubnkcness internal LOAD BEEARING wall.

If it is a fiber glass or acrylic bath, and the end would have been buried in the wall anyway, consider angle grinding 1/2" off the bath end. This will reduce stiffness, but if it is glued into teh wall that should be no problem...

[PoP]

Nope. Removed the pedestal unit first. Then used a rotozip to chop the bath in half to get it out (it was going down the tip anyway).

I have at this moment in time one half of the bath out in the back garden ready for disposal. The other half I haven't quite figured how to disconnect yet.

I've turned off the water supply via the valves in the airing cupboard and the cold shuts down nicely. But the hot tap in the bath (lowest point in the system) has continued to dribble all night. Can't get under the taps to freeze the pipe and the only other option is to take the kitchen sink unit apart on the other side of the wall to access the pipe from there.

Just having a quiet think about this at the moment. I'm sure inspiration will set in.....

Damned plumbers. And we pay them how much?????

PoP

[R W]

Me too.

[ben]

How about you put an old towel down on the floor, then chop the hot pipe with a pipe-slice and quickly whack a compression cap over it? When you want to reconnect, you can use a compression coupler and reuse the nut and olive from the cap.

Ben.

[Zymurgy]

heh. I had the same issue, however it was an imperial (75"?) bath that was chopped in to the wall. A 1700 bath is even longer, I opted for a

1600 bath.

Much easier all round, but not very good for my 6'1" frame ;-(

Cheers,

Paul.

[PoP]

That's more or less what I did. Only the pipeslice wouldn't turn on the curved pipe (the plumber had bent the pipe from the wall into the bath tap).

Ended up rotozipping the end of the bath out so that I could get to the plumbing thru a hole. Bastard job this one.

PoP

[Mark S.]

I smashed and jigsawed my old bath up and put it in the wheelie bin. ;-) I'm paying for it so I make sure it's full every week.

Mark S.